John Murray was a Universalist who certainly took starting fresh to heart. Tragedy struck for Murray when his wife and young son died, and then he was put in jail because he was unable to pay his bills.
In 1770 he felt able to make a totally fresh start, so he got on a ship and headed for the New World, North America. Unfortunately, the ship got stuck just off the shore of New Jersey, when they were trying to get to New York.
But Murray agreed to go on shore and try to find directions and supplies. He ended up on the doorstep of a man named Thomas Potter, who greeted him as the Universalist preacher that Potter had been waiting for!
Well, Murray didn’t have plans to be a Universalist preacher—that wasn’t the fresh start he had in mind. He wanted to go on to New York. But he agreed that if they didn’t get the wind the boat needed to sail on, that he would preach on Sunday about Universalism’s message of an absolutely loving God.
Well the wind didn’t pick up, and Murray did preach, and he ended up making a fresh start by marrying Potter’s daughter and becoming a traveling preacher, spreading the good news of God’s love all over New England.
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I found out that something was wrong the same way I find out so many things nowadays: on Facebook. Read more →
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So, here’s a question to get us started: Who do you tell your secrets to? Now, don’t go and say you don’t have any secrets. Because that’s just not true; everyone has secrets. Everyone does. Read more →
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The biggest secret at CLF is that we need your support to sustain Quest Monthly! With nearly 700 members in prison, and hundreds more on fixed incomes, many of our congregants are unable to contribute financially. Read more →
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In her book On Lies, Secrets, and Silence one of the essential writings of 1970s feminism, Adrienne Rich wrote: “Whatever is unnamed…will become, not merely unspoken, but unspeakable.” Read more →
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What does it feel like when you have a secret? We asked folks on the CLF Facebook page: How does it feel in your body to carry a secret? Read more →
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…that you can share in real-time worship with other CLFers, or watch services on-demand after they run live? Read more →
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“Part of me is so Beautiful. I don’t know how to let that part win.” Read more →
January 2016
The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes,
the dreams,
the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
—Charlotte Brontë
I was there on Wednesday, at the Black Lives Matter protests at the Mall of America, at the airport, and on the light rail.
I was there on Wednesday with my 12 and 7-year-old daughters.
I was there because we were there a year ago—our first visit to the mall with 3,000 of our closest friends. As my older daughter pointed out when I was wavering on my decision to go, “It’s our holiday tradition, Dad! On Thanksgiving we protest Walmart. At Christmas, we go to the mall with Black Lives Matter!”
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Quest for Meaning is a program of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF).
As a Unitarian Universalist congregation with no geographical boundary, the CLF creates global spiritual community, rooted in profound love, which cultivates wonder, imagination, and the courage to act.